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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-07 Daily Xml
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Social and Affordable Housing

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. Can the minister provide an update on the release of social and affordable housing in South Australia?

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services) (14:33): Thanks to the member for Gibson for this important question. The member for Gibson joined me and the member for Boothby at this important event, I think the week before last. The member for Gibson, obviously, along with other members on this side of the house, is committed to making sure that people have a safe and affordable place to call home.

I had the pleasure of attending, with the member for Gibson and the member for Boothby, a sod turning at a new housing development known as Oaklands Green. This project is turning around 250 former public housing properties into almost 700 new homes. This includes replacing old social housing with new homes, adding both affordable and market homes to increase the social mix and supporting the expansion of an adjoining residential aged care service.

This project began with an expression of interest in 2017. This was when the current Treasurer was the minister for housing and urban development. While it has taken some years to get this to a position of where we are today, the outcome is most definitely worth the wait. The project means that we can maintain the overall level of social housing here in South Australia. We are swapping old properties for brand-new homes, increasing the social mix in the local community and almost tripling the amount of housing, right when we need it most.

Oaklands Green is a partnership in every sense of the word: state government land and ageing public housing from the 1950s, Junction Housing as a for-purpose partner to manage the new homes, local council, local builders, philanthropy and private finance via a special purpose vehicle called Housing Renewal Australia Oaklands Park. As the project continues, there are opportunities to link the emerging commonwealth housing opportunities like the Housing Australia Future Fund and expand the partnership model even further.

Oaklands Green will be the largest single housing renewal project since the enormous Westwood project that ran for more than a decade from the late 1990s and changed the face of Adelaide's western suburbs. I am proud that Oaklands Green has set a new benchmark but I am hoping that we see even bigger projects before long that benefit from historic investments in social and affordable housing under both the Malinauskas and Albanese Labor governments. This development is not just about the size. It is a shining example of how innovation can deliver results for our community.

Social housing being built with private funds is a rare thing indeed. In fact, I have struggled to find another example anywhere in Australia where this has actually been happening. Oaklands Green is doing just that. By giving the partnership flexibility to mix social, affordable and market homes, they are able to reinvest proceeds from market sales to make the development work. As this project starts to take shape on the ground, we are in the final stages of allocating $135.8 million in federal funds to boost social housing here in South Australia. We are also well on our way to building and upgrading hundreds of homes under our own government's investment of an extra $232.7 million into public housing.

As I speak today, applications for the first round of the commonwealth's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is aiming to support another 30,000 social and affordable homes around Australia and is currently open. There are three things we need to do to ease pressure on the housing market, and that is, supply, supply and more supply. All of these programs will deliver exactly that. In closing, I am very proud to have been at Oaklands Green last month to see the first outcomes from a seed that was planted in 2017.

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